With the popularity of the Insull Figures back in the 1950’s it seems rather strange that this style figure was not used very much here in the United States. W.S. Berger was importing Insull figures and was selling them too. Most of the Insull pocket figures that are in this country today are here because of Mr Berger.
Frank Marshall was very friendly with Mr Berger and because of this the one leather mouth Marshall figure that I know of may have been made because of Berger.
The figure was made by Frank Marshall some where around 1951 for Doc Sontag and today does in fact reside at the Vent Haven Museum.
Above is a photo of this rare Frank Marshall Figure.
Dan
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Ventriloquist Central is the brainchild of Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst. Dan is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Steve is a ventriloquist as well as builder of ventriloquist figures. He also has a background in sales, marketing, building websites and computers. Because they both love the art of ventriloquism, the website Ventriloquist Central was born. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com
Copyright 2013 by Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst
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Mr. Berger told me this, and sold me one (called it a Davenport because sold through magic shop). The bad thing about the leather or living mouth aside from its being unnatural (lip/teeth lowering but not chin) is audience on left and right could not see much movement, whereas with slot jaw especially with the wedge could always see some chin movement.
I meant that audience could not see much movement if head was turned at extreme left or right.